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More than a year following the vote that delivered Donald Trump a clear-cut comeback victory, the Democratic Party has yet to issued its election autopsy. However, last week, an prominent liberal advocacy organization published its own. The Harris campaign, its authors argued, failed to connect with core constituencies because it did not focus enough on addressing basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the threat to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, progressives overlooked the kitchen-table concerns that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Warning for European Capitals

While Europe prepares for a turbulent era of politics from now until the end of the decade, that is a lesson that must be fully understood in European capitals. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy indicates, is optimistic that “patriotic” parties in Europe will soon replicate Mr Trump’s success. Within Europe's core nations, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) lead the polls, backed by significant segments of working-class voters. But among mainstream leaders and parties, it is difficult to see a strategy that is adequate to challenging times.

Era-Defining Problems and Expensive Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are expensive and historic. They encompass the war in Ukraine, sustaining the momentum of the green transition, dealing with demographic change and building economies that are less vulnerable to bullying by Mr Trump and China. According to a Brussels-based research institute, the new age of geopolitical insecurity could require an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A significant study last year on European economic competitiveness demanded substantial investment in public goods, to be partly funded by collective EU debt.

Such a economic transformation would stimulate growth figures that have stagnated for years.

However, at both the pan-European and national levels, there remains a lack of boldness when it comes to generating funds. The EU’s so-called “frugal” nations oppose the idea of shared debt, and EU spending plans for the next seven years are deeply unambitious. In France, the idea of a tax on the super-rich is overwhelmingly popular with voters. Yet the beleaguered centrist government – though desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Price of Political Paralysis

The truth is that without such measures, the less well-off will pay the price of financial adjustment through austerity budgets and greater inequality. Acrimonious recent conflicts over pension cutbacks in both France and Germany testify to a developing struggle over the future of the European social model – a phenomenon that the RN and the AfD have eagerly leveraged to promote a politics of nativist social policy. Ms Le Pen’s party, for example, has opposed moves to raise the retirement age and has said that it would focus any benefit cuts at non-French nationals.

Preventing a Political Gift for Nationalists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect working-class interests were largely insincere, as later healthcare reductions and fiscal benefits for the wealthy demonstrated. But in the absence of a convincing progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the election circuit. Without a radical shift in fiscal policy, societal agreements across the continent are in danger of being ripped up. Policymakers must avoid handing this political gift to the Trumpian forces already on the rise in Europe.